Leaders Lead, Humans Dominate (Why Are We Here)

I think what the Tao Te Ching is trying to teach us can be summarized in chapter twenty-three. It says:
“He who follows the Tao
Is one with the Tao.
He who is virtuous
Experiences virtue.
He who loses the way
Is lost.” (p. 25)

These three things, about being one with the Tao, having virtue as a value and following the “way” are all in the introduction. Basically, as I said before, the Tao Te Ching derives from these three things. They come up other times, for example, in Chapter Twenty-One, Virtue and Tao appear again. “The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone.” (p. 23) notice that Virtue is written with a capital “V” therefore, it is seen as a pronoun.
In conclusion, the message that is trying to be sent is that we should start to work WITH earth instead of AGAINST it. (When I say earth I refer to all living things apart from human beings.) We have confused the amount of power we think we have, as said in chapter 10, “Leading yet not dominating, this is the Primal Virtue” a value, we lack and desperately need.

So, why are we here?
To lead, not dominate.

We Use (Where Are We Going)

The first time I heard about the Tao Te Ching was in the drama show we did last year. In one of my scenes I said: “The Tao Te Ching says that in order to move one kilometer you have to give the first step…” I didn’t pay too much attention to the line. I was just worried about memorizing it. When we got the book I remembered about the play and went back to the line. I imagined the book would have similar lessons to the ones in Confucius, I actually found out they both have a very big lesson behind them, a lesson from which other lessons derive. They both talk a lot about virtue. “Te” actually means virtue, but not the meaning of virtue we’re accustomed to. “Te refers to nothing less than the quality of human action that allows the central, creative power of the universe to manifest through it.” (p.10 of introduction) What is so great about the Tao Te Ching is that its intention is to make the reader “live a direct relationship to all these forces” (forces refer to the cosmos forces.) At first I couldn’t understand what this meant. I had heard about this in movies like The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know but not until I read “Tao Te Ching” did I understand what it meant. Living in “direct relationship” with the cosmos forces simply means to live WITH Earth instead of living IN it. We are using Earth, that’s what takers do. Everything that you use will be over, its like in chapter 3 were it says “If nothing is done, all will be well.” If we didn’t see Earth as material and instead saw it as a living thing, it would remain “un-mortal, un-born” just as described in chapter 7.
The “Tao Te Ching” is like a maze. Each chapter is a key which opens a new door to the Tao, the way. It starts out warning the reader. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” p.3 The first thing you wonder is what is “the Tao”? It is necessary to read the introduction before starting the book. Here it states that the “Tao” can’t be translated but it’s meaning is “way or path” referring to how humans are in relation to other living things. The path refers to the guidance we need. Coming back to the Tao not being the “eternal Tao”, the path won’t always be the same, the relationship between human beings and other living things is constantly changing. I think it’s actually a cycle. It like what Carlos Fuentes talked about in his story “Quien Invento La Polvora”, we started out learning how to make fire. Then we “evolved” and made all sorts of inventions. This evolution is starting to make everything go backwards and we’ll end up either where we started or no where at all.

Where are we going?
If, our ambition continues, back to the beginning

Learning, Growing, Improving

You don’t realize how much you've learned until you look back and compare your past work with your present one. I have not only improved in conventions such as commas, capitalization in titles or spelling mistakes, I also pay more attention to what to write and especially to what I read. Looking back at my blogs actually made me laugh. I didn’t even have to read the whole text, only by looking at the titles I was amazed at how much I’ve grown. One title was Adam ate the apple, two mistakes there. The title isn’t capitalized and saying the fruit Adam ate was an apple is wrong. In another blog, actually in many of them I started out with a quotation. Now I read back and see how such a small detail as starting out with a quotation can make a blog be so dull. I feel frustrated to look at how bad the blogs were, I know I still have a lot to improve on, probably in a couple of months I’ll look back at the blogs I did these past few weeks and feel they’re bad too. This exercise of looking back at prior blogs was really useful. It’s good to remember how much you’ve learned and how much you can still improve.

Doing What Is Right And Avoiding What Is Wrong

I'm starting to get the hang of Confucius. I'm overwhelmed by how much lessons there are. I don’t even know what I should write about. I’m going to start to talk about Confucius. This is a character that caught my attention because he’s very similar to Ishmael. He makes it very clear that he won’t help anyone who is not willing to learn, just as Ishmael did. “the master said: "I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious” From there on he started throwing lesson after lesson, my favorite passage was the following:"Respectfulness, without the rules of propriety, becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, without the rules of propriety, becomes timidity; boldness, without the rules of propriety, becomes insubordination; straightforwardness, without the rules of propriety, becomes rudeness.This all has to do with virtue, doing what’s right and avoiding what’s wrong. I had to look most of the words up in the dictionary, anyways, in my words, the quote says:Respectfulness becomes an overwhelming and effortful task when isn’t done right. Carefulness becomes shy, when it isn’t done in a correct way. Boldness, if is not done right, becomes disobedient. Straightforwardness can become rude if it isn’t done correctly. All of these values described are good to have. You should be direct respectful careful and stand up for what you like but you should always do it with virtue. The 8th grade sociales teacher told us: “Liberty doesn’t consist on doing what you want, but on doing what is suppose to be done because that’s what you want. (I think it sounds better in Spanish: la libertad no consiste en hacer lo que se me da la gana, sino en hacer lo que hay que hacer, porque se me da la gana) If you just do things because you want to, you’ll become disobedient. If you say what you think straight forward, you may become rude. Everything has to be done with some rules to follow. I deduce from the chapters we read, that the first rule is to do things with virtue.

Different Answers To The QUESTions

I liked what we had to read for homework. It talks a lot about virtue, how man behaves, and what happens if he behaves in a certain way. Even though I got the message of the story, I didn’t quite the point behind it, I mean, I know what the message is, but I don’t know how I got to it.
We have seen you can either interpret text in a literal way, or in a more analyzed way. This text has to be seen as both, and one depends on the other. If you don’t understand the literal part of the text, you will be lost, and if you don’t analyze to where the characters want to go, you’re missing out of the whole point. I think such complicated texts should be read calmly and slow. Reading 3 chapters in one night was quite heavy. The names were also very confusing and made me have to go back and forth in order to understand (which I didn’t, really).
The good thing about Confucius is that you may not understand part of the story, but you can still get part of the message. For example, I found the whole dialogue about virtue very confusing. On the other hand, there were parts that I did understand and was able to compare to what we have read previously. The event in which Adam and Eve ate the fruit is equal to the following quote: “The Master said, "At first, my way with men was to hear their words, and give them credit for their conduct. Now my way is to hear their words, and look at their conduct.” This is something God would say if he was to talk about how things changed since the fall of men. After Adam and Eve's action, God could only look at what his creation did, he was no longer able to talk to the directly. It’s important to compare in order to have more space to analyze. The more we know, the closer we get to answering the QUESTions.

Obama's Change Convinced The United States

Obama’s triumph is 90% based on his great public speaking skills. While he spoke, he made people trust him, everyone bought his confidence believe the words he said. In the acceptance speech, he made everyone feel part of the triumph by thanking practically every person he ever met. Of course, he also talked about the “change” America needs, which is basically what his whole campaign was based on. Obama proposed change, McCain, him not so much. Obama is different to what the Americans are used to. Americans are sick of Bush and his political strategies, and want to try something new. It’s like when you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch. Sooner or later, you're sick of the sandwich and want to try something else. McCain was also a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Obama, was ham and cheese. Of course the Americans chose the ham and cheese, not only because it was different, it also inspired trust in them and gave them thirst of change, thirst to become better, something that was lost since the 2000 presidential election. Now all that’s left is to see how far Obama and the rest of the Americans are willing to go for that change.

Why Me ?

We've always been taught there is a cause behind every effect. No wonder we get so frustrated when things happen without a particular reason (there's always a reason; we just don't see it sometimes). People have invented things to explain the unexplainable. There is good luck, bad luck, and the popular: Karma. Karma not only explains why things happen, it also encourages people to follow the "right path": don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you. But what happens when you think you are a good person, you have never done wrong, you believe you deserve the best because that's all that you have given and boom! Something really awful happens. It reminds me of the Simpson's episode in which Ned's house (Ned is the ONLY good person in Springfield, besides of course the priest. Marge is also good I guess...) is the only one destroyed by a hurricane. I'm starting to believe they The Simpsons are inspired in bible stories and characters. There have been a lot of episodes which relate to the bible and the characters have some of the traits of the ones in the bible.
Anyways, Ned bursts in anger to see he is the only harmed when the rest of the people are the ones that deserved the worst, just as Job would after those "natural disasters" harm him. The Simpsons are always making fun of karma. Homer, who would deserve the worst there could possibly be, ends up having his way while Ned, who tries to follow God in every possible way, ends up in uncomfortable situations.
I don't believe in karma, or in good or bad luck. I try to see everything as a good. If something bad happens, I actually get curious and try to find out the reason behind it. Sometimes, the reason is clear from the start. Others, it appears days, months and sometimes years later! But that's the fun part of life, taking advantage of great moments and learning from the difficult ones. After all, everything happens for a reason, doesn't it?

Hidden Fallacies

Here are some fallacies:

• Obama: Well, Oliver, first, let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you. Right now, the credit markets are frozen up and what that means, as a practical matter, is that small businesses and some large businesses just can't get loans.
  If they can't get a loan, that means that they can't make payroll. If they can't make payroll, then they may end up having to shut their doors and lay people off.
• Sen. McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a sub-prime lending crisis that has to be dealt with.

Here are other fallacies which I was surprised to see:

• The question was: Sen. McCain, in all candor, do you think the economy is going to get worse before it gets better? part of the answer: My friend, I'd like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Sen. Obama's name was not on that letter.
• Obama is also guilty. The question was: How can we trust either of you with our money when both parties got -- got us into this global economic crisis? And part of the answer: When George Bush came into office, our debt -- national debt was around $5 trillion. It's now over $10 trillion.